Dan Barker can’t help but cause a lot of talk wherever he goes.
People inevitably try to find out why an ordained minister – a former touring Protestant evangelist, missionary and associate pastor – is now an ardent atheist.
Barker says he is prepared to defend shrugging off his beliefs.
“I have half the battle won. They can’t say I haven’t read the Bible. They can’t say I don’t know the facts about Christianity,” he said.
Nor does he shy away from an argument.
“I love the stigma” associated with rejecting those beliefs, he said.
Daytona Beach-area residents can hear him in a series of events this weekend sponsored by Central Florida Freethinkers, a group of area residents who are members of Barker’s Freedom From Religion Foundation based in Madison, Wis.
Barker, 41, will attend a public reception in his honor at 6 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Ormond Beach meeting hall, 56 N. Halifax Drive. After media sessions Saturday morning, he will participate in free public forums at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the hall.
Gordon Williamson, who is organizing the event, said the forums are designed as discussion of the role of the Bible in everyday life. He said dozens of local clergy have been invited to participate and discuss the Bible, but none had accepted by early this week.
Barker developed a nationwide reputation after defending atheism on such television talk shows as Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jesse Raphael, and Morton Downey Jr.’s former talk show.
Barker, an accomplished pianist and songwriter, will perform in a free concert at the hall at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
He accompanied such well-known Christian singers as Pat Boone, Doris Akers and Audrey Meier before he publicly embraced atheism in 1984.
Barker is still collecting royalties for his popular Christian musicals, Mary Had A Little Lamb and His Fleece Was White As Snow.
At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, he will deliver the message at the Unitarian church’s service.
Barker, who regularly tours the nation to speak on religion-related issues, was invited by a local Unitarian church member who heard him at a conference.
His discussions are not limited to atheism. Barker is public relations director of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a group he said is devoted to upholding the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
His wife, Annie Laurie Gaylor, is editor of the foundation’s publication, Freethought Today. Her mother, Anne Gaylor, founded the group in 1978.
Barker, who holds a degree in religion from Azusa Pacific University in California and was an evangelist as a teen-ager, joined the foundation in 1984. He said the group has about 4,000 members and has grown about 20 percent a year since 1986.
He expects the growth to subside.
“We’re not trying to convert the whole world to atheism,” Barker said in a phone conversation from his Madison office.
He said the foundation attracts people who are not atheists, too. Members who pay $30 a year to join “are dissenters who care, people who are fed up and want free thought,” he said.
Most similar skeptical groups are small, according to published reports. The American Humanist Association, which recently marked its 50th anniversary, claims about 5,000 members. American Atheists in Texas, a group founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair – probably the nation’s best-known atheist – has only a few thousand members and is not affiliated with the foundation, Barker said.
He said his foundation has an annual budget of $150,000 to $200,000, which often goes toward joining the American Civil Liberty Union’s lawsuits involving separation of church and state. Major donors enabled the group to pay $165,000 in cash for its new building.
For anyone hoping to find some deep-seated reason behind his rejection of Christianity, Barker said there is none.
“I Left because of intellectual hunger. I lost faith in faith.
“I love the freedom of thought, freedom to think, to question.”
Barker, a computer programmer, said he read books by non-religious authors and, after five years of research, rejected his religion.
